Winter Vegetable Pasta Primavera

Pasta at our local Italian restaurant The Pastaria & Market in downtown Los Gatos has some of the best pasta dishes around. Their vegetarian pasta primavera is one of the most delicious pastas we have ever tasted. A few surprise veggies that make this pasta taste outstanding are winter vegetables such as Brussels sprouts, little radishes, cauliflower, and broccoli. I’m sure this variety of vegetables changes with the seasons, but no matter what time of year we order this pasta primevera, it always tastes amazing. This really is an awesome feel-good pasta with lots of good for you veggies and flavorful marinara sauce.

When we are craving this delectable vegetarian pasta and in the mood to make it at home, I love to make it with winter vegetables just like at the restaurant. I pack in a wide variety of vegetables and take a short cut with store-bought marinara sauce and just pump up the flavor with extra garlic, olives, marinated artichokes and chili flakes. With plenty of good for you veggies and tons of flavor, this is a hearty, healthy, easy and delicious pasta to make at any time of year. Give this recipe a try!

Pasta Primavera with Winter Vegetables

Ingredients:

1 lb pasta of your choice

1 jar of your favorite store-bought pasta sauce

8 cloves garlic finely crushed

1/2 tsp red chili flakes (optional)

1 cup Brussels sprouts cut into quarters

1 cup radish cut into quarters or turnips

2 cups broccoli florets

2 cups cauliflower florets

1 cup baby carrots peeled and cut into small pieces

1 fennel bulb cut into thin slices

1 red bell pepper cut into small chunks

1 cup marinatd artichokes

1/2 cup marinated olives

4-5 tbsp sundried tomatoes cut into small pieces

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Toss together all the vegetables with 4 tbsp olive oil and 4 garlic crushed cloves. Spread on a thin layer on two baking sheets and roast vegetables until veggies are cooked. About 30 – 40 minutes. Make sure to stir the vegetables after 20 minutes as you continue to roast them. Set aside.

In a large pot heat 1- 2 tbsp oil and sauté remaining 4 crushed garlic cloves for a few seconds. Add red chili flakes and all the roasted vegetables, salt, and toss together. Cook for 5 minutes.

Add the entire jar of marinara sauce, olives, sundried tomatoes and mix into the vegetables. Cover and heat through until sauce is hot and bubbly, about 5 minutes.

In the meantime make the pasta according to package directions. Strain the pasta saving 2 cups of pasta water.

Add cooked pasta to marinara sauce and toss together to coat all the pasta. Add extra pasta water if needed to thin the pasta dish.

You are right, this pasta will make a great weekend dinner! It is chock full of vegetables that you dont really need anything else, not even a saladl. I just serve an appetizer of fresh mozzerella with balsamic vinegar and olive oil, and a baguette and you even have protein covered. I hope you will give this pasta recipe a try!

Mediterranean Diet is the Healthiest in the World

Year after year, when multiple diets are looked at for effectiveness, benefits for life and longevity, and long term sustainability, it’s the Mediterranean Diet that comes on top every time. And this year 2020, its the Mediterranean Diet again that wins top honors.

According to CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta, “A new study published Monday in the BMJ journal Gut found that eating the Mediterranean diet for just one year altered the microbiome of elderly people in ways that improved brain function and would aid in longevity.

The study found the diet can inhibit production of inflammatory chemicals that can lead to loss of cognitive function, and prevent the development of chronic diseases such as diabetes, cancer and atherosclerosis.”

Source: CNN Health

Eat a salad boost brain power

Older adults who reported regularly eating one to two servings a day of green leafy vegetables slowed their rate of age-related cognitive decline. So much so, in fact, that they tested as if they were 11 years younger!

A Golden State of Mind

California will do that to you – seep into your synapses like the scent of gardenias and not let go.

It was a simple plan. Take the kids to California. Show them Santa Barbara, drive up the coast to Big Sur and the Bay Area, and wrap up with friends in Napa Valley and Lake Tahoe. I didn’t know my kids would fall in love with the state by the time we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, just as I did at age 10. Then we would return every summer thereafter. California is a state that still elicits wonder, no matter your age.”

Hunter Lewis. Food and Wine Editor April, 2020

Garden Color

Start Gardening To Eat Better

A new study in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics found that when older cancer survivors started an at-home vegetable garden, they boosted their daily produce intake, prevented some waistline weight gain, and reported feel greater “worth” compared to their counterparts who didn’t garden.

We’ve all heard exercise helps you live longer. But a new study goes one step further, finding that a sedentary lifestyle is worse for your health than smoking, diabetes and heart disease.

One of the big revelations from the research is that fitness leads to longer life, with no limit to the benefit of aerobic exercise. The study found that there is no level of exercise or fitness that exposes you to risk. Source: Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA)

diet quality, not quantity, is what helps people lose and manage their weight most easily in the long run.

The Times’s Anahad O’Connor reported this week, that new research published in the February 2018 issue of JAMA (The Journal of American Medical Association) supports the idea thatdiet quality, not quantity, is what helps people lose and manage their weight most easily in the long run.

In other words, the study found that if you cut back on added sugar, refined grains and highly processed foods and instead eat plenty of vegetables and whole foods, you can lose significant amounts ofweight — even without limiting portion sizes.

The research was led by Christopher D. Gardner, the director of nutrition studies at the Stanford Prevention Research Center and carried out on adults recruited from the Bay Area.

“This is the road map to reducing the obesity epidemic in the United States,” said Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University who was not involved in the new study. “It’s time for U.S. and other national policies to stop focusing on calories and calorie counting.”

What it means to be Californian

The New York Times asked Chef Samin Nosrat of Netflix show Salt Fat Acid Heat, what it means to be Californian. This was her answer.

Samin Nosrat: “And you asked about how being a Californian has influenced me: Above any other way of identifying, like above race or religion or anything — or nationality — I identify as a Californian. The way in which I’ve gotten to spend so much of my life outside in nature, in different landscapes, has absolutely affected me. I really love the beach. The beach has always been a constant in my life. Agriculture has affected me. The way there are so many different kinds of people here from all over the world — I’m so, so grateful for that. I remember being sick of the fact that it was always sunny in San Diego. My dad said to me: “What’s wrong with you? Everyone in the whole rest of the world aspires to live in California.”

About

I want to share with you my passion for everything beautiful. Nature, beautiful flowers, cooking delicious foods, celebrating festivals, meeting with friends and family, and anything that brings joy and happiness.

What you will find here are a variety of healthy vegetarian recipes chock full of good for you vegetables, legumes, eggs, milk, cheese, and yogurt.

I love photography and love to take photos of my garden, places I’ve traveled to and of gatherings with families and friends. Here you will find a little of everything, recipes, pictures, stories and everything happy.

Welcome to Surreyfarms. A happy state of mind. With Love, Kalpana

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Quotable Quotes

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” ~ Mark Twain

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Healthy Tip

“Green, leafy vegetables such as arugula, kale, collard greens, broccoli, spinach, and Swiss chard are among the foods that support brain health. Across several studies there is fairly consistent findings that green, leafy vegetables do seem to be related to decreased risk of cognitive impairments or dementia,” CBSnews.com

The joy of herb gardening

5 Lifestyle Habits that could help you live 10-years longer

Not smoking

Eating healthy

Excercising regularly

Maintaining a normal weight

Drinking only in moderation

“The new findings come from two studies by Harvard University that have followed over 123,000 U.S. health professionals since the 1980s. Over the years, the participants gave detailed information on their diets, exercise habits and other lifestyle factors.

On average, the researchers found, people who adhered to the five healthy habits were 74 percent less likely to die during the study period, versus those who maintained none of those habits.

Those who followed all five good lifestyle habits were also 82 percent less likely to die of heart disease or stroke, and 65 percent less likely to die of cancer, the findings showed.”

Low-carb diets might be best for maintaining weight loss

“We found that the type of diet people ate had a major impact on their metabolism. Those on the low-carbohydrate diet burned about 250 calories a day more than those on the high-carbohydrate diet, even though all the groups were the same weight,” said Dr. David Ludwig, principal investigator of the study and co-director of the New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center at Boston Children’s Hospital.

Gardening could be the hobby that helps you live to 100

According to a recent BBC article Many of the world’s centenarians share one common hobby: gardening.

Dan Buettner the author of “Blue Zones” who has studied five places around the world where residents are famed for their longevity: Okinawa in Japan, Nicoya in Costa Rica, Icaria in Greece, and Loma Linda in California and Sardinia in Italy attributes gardening as one of the long-life hobbies.

“People living in these so-called “blue zones” have certain factors in common – social support networks, daily exercise habits and a plant-based diet, for starters. But they share another unexpected commonality. In each community, people are gardening well into old age – their 80s, 90s and beyond.”

He says there is evidence that gardeners live longer and are less stressed. A variety of studies confirm this, pointing to both the physical and mental health benefits of gardening.

A little about edible flowers

Using edible flowers in cakes and salads is an age old tradition that dates back centuries that became not so fashionable over the last few decades, however with the recent revival of organic gardening and holistic natural healing remedies, using edible flowers and herbs is coming back into popularity.

You may be surpried to learn that the list of edible flowers is huge with over hundred herbs and flowers that are edible. Just make sure to do your research before you head out into your garden and use flowers and herbs in your cooking.

As for me, I’ve always loved the idea of incorporating flowers and herbs as edible decorations in my foods. I tend to use edible flowers from my garden that I am familiar with that look pretty and are pesticide free. Most of my edibles are roses, nasturtiums, pansies, and marigolds. I also use the flowers that form on vegetables and herb plants.

Once you see the potential of using edible flowers and herbs in your desserts, salads, soups and stews, the possibitlies are endless.